Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The massive winter storms that pummeled much of country had a devastating effect on Red Cross blood collection efforts. Nationally, 850 blood drives were cancelled and over 32,000 pints of blood were not collected. In the Missouri-Illinois region alone, 73 blood drives were put on hold and 3,400 pints of blood were not donated.

The Red Cross’s Lori Nehring says that January collection numbers were so bad that it set records for futility.

"We hadn’t seen this low of a donation period in any given January in the last 10 years," Nehring says. "So we’re hoping that now that the weather has broke that people are going to start coming out and we’re going to get back to where we need to be regarding our blood supply."

Nehring says that blood drives and donation centers are staying open for extra hours to accommodate more people to give blood throughout the region.